emptyhanded

It all slides together...falls apart...fades into dreams.

It was. It was.

Sometimes he says it to himself, under his breath.

It was.

He walks through his days, sometimes runs, pushing, sprinting toward a goal that isn't there. He tries give himself to his job like a priest losing himself in his faith, wants to immolate all he is in it.

It makes a lovely light. Burning at duty's stake.

He has to close his eyes. When he's done, when he's ready to drop, then he can close his eyes and dream. Remember.

There was a hand, a reaching out hand.

They'd found it, hadn't they? Not the Hand of Franklin, not that hand. Something else.

Just dreams.

In a tent, in the snow, in two sleeping bags zipped together, in two bodies pressed close as bone will allow, in that dream...

He's so tired.

His eyes close.

It was.

Wasn't it?

Fraser runs his palm down Ray's side, down over the ripple of ribs, the dip of his navel, the jut of a hipbone, down the long, long length of a leg, as far as he can reach without letting go of startling soft blond hair with his other hand. He leans closer and tastes an eyebrow, an eyelid that trembles and feels like silk to his tongue tip, down to the crease Ray's smile cuts into his cheek.

Should this comfort him, alone and empty?

He was always leaving.

Always.

Always knew it. Knew it like the cold and the night and the empty places.

And there's nothing there, at the corner of his eye, where he expects that presense.

Because he left.

Ray rests his hands on broad shoulders, testing the power of the muscle laid over strong bone, cream pale skin alive and warm beneath his palms. He's kneeling, his head bowed, not looking at Fraser's face. Outside the tent, the snowfield is so still and silent and empty that to speak a word, to even sigh, seems like sacrilege. Instead, Ray's fingers dance over the planes and angles of the other man, tracing wordless hieroglyphs of reverance.

No one knows him here. No one has in so long. He wears masks over masks, a skill he's honed, to show exactly who it is anyone wants him to be. No one to see the hollowness underneath.

No one.

Nothing here, folks.

No one left since he left.

Fraser is spooned round Ray, cradling the too thin detective closer, one big hand splayed over his chest, riding the rise and fall of Ray's sleeping breath, feeling the distant drum of his heartbeat. Dief is curled next to Ray's legs, though on the outside of the sleeping bag. Ray is a restless sleeper and will soon wake, complaining Fraser and Dief have him pinned down, but he will not move away from Fraser's arms.

Keep the spring wound tight. Never let go. Let himself know. No.

Face forward.

Don't stop now. Don't think.

Ray's arms are wrapped around Fraser's neck, his fingers buried in that short mink-colored hair, twisted and leaning into each other, hip to hip. One leg is between Fraser's thighs. He would melt into Fraser if he could, meld the molecules of his body with Fraser, fuse them together the way his mouth is fused to Fraser's now, so that nothing could ever separate them. He wants to forget that reality is gravity, that ultimately everything returns to earth, that the universe is slowing into heat death and even love is ultimately left as a frozen cinder.

Don't say anything to anyone. There isn't anything to say. Just echoes.

Screaming at the bottom of a well.

In some language no one hears.

Sometimes the aurora is so brilliant its light reaches through the walls of the tent and colors Fraser's pale features. Ray stills then, watching, eerily reminded of hotel rooms and neon through the shades and the things they never admitted in Chicago. So many things kept silent.

Ephemeral.

Slush in the gutter. Gray gutter, gray curb, stained melting dirty stuff. Standing on a corner, staring at it. Bend over, pick up a handful of it, filthy stuff. It's too warm, there's no crisp crunch as his fingers compress it. Not really snow anymore and it melts, sliding through his fingers and even the cold can't hold.

He can't hold onto it.

Nothing there.

They are north, far above the arctic circle, and the sun has not risen above the horizon for a month, but the solstice has passed and the long night is ending. With dawn, they will have to wake from their dreams. Fraser clings to Ray like it's the last night of the world, and it is, the last night of their world, the last night facing north.

Look away, look away.

Ray curses Hemingway and helps Fraser, loading the sled and harnessing the dogs in the fading dark. It's past eleven but dawn has come. Every beginning is an ending and 'the sun also rises' is their end. Ray doesn't want the sun to come up. When the night's over, their time will be done.

Arms held him once. He held on. He held on as long as he could. Never enough, not long enough, and this is reality.

This is gravity.

Holding him down, holding him in place.

This is. This is.

It is.

It isn't enough.

They head south along the edge of the Beaufort Sea, across the ice that blurs the distinction between frozen land and frozen ocean. When they camp again, the dogs howl forlornly and nothing answers. The sun has set, but it will return the next day and the next, stronger and higher each time, chasing them south.

Ray crawls into the sleeping bag and pretends to sleep. Fraser joins him. He strokes Ray's back, then leans his forehead against Ray's shoulder. Ray feels tears against his skin, blood warm and wet. He waits for Fraser to speak, but there are no words. Slowly, Fraser's touch changes from comfort to desire and Ray lets himself go with it, riding gentle waves of pleasure, offering Fraser everything. The small instant of discomfort pales against the pain of knowing this will not be his much longer. The eternity of his climax fades too swiftly into an empty ache he'll still feel in the morning

That was the place. That was the moment, the moment he was meant for, when he was right. He fit.

Some men never know their moment. Some never find it.

It would be better.

Better than going on when that moment is past.

Nothing holds, nothing stays, and good is worse than bad when it's gone.

Morning follows morning and they speak only of the small things, of making camp, charting their course, what supplies are left, that the left side anchor dog has a sore foot Ray wants to look at.

Every day they wind their way closer to civilization. Inuvik. Civilization. Ray's been out on the ice with Fraser too long to go back to who he was before unchanged. Even Inuvik seems too big, too loud, too demanding. The silent expanses have stilled something in his soul, a space that will be hollow when he leaves this place.

Alone.

Alone.

Alone.

A heartbeat. Slow rhythm. Just his. No one beside him, no breath, no second drum alive in the flesh under his hands. No touch, no warmth, he cannot feel anything anymore, and his own heartbeat repeats the refrain, alone, alone, alone.

When they reach the outskirts of town, they stop. Ray looks at the buildings and the straight edges and right angles look wrong, foreign and unnatural. He wonders if this isn't what Fraser has always seen. He wonders if it is all he'll see from now on.

They stake out the dogs and make a small camp, both unwilling to go any further for the day. One night, one last night, and the next day is the end of their journey.

He's worn away his memories. He still can't rest. He wishes they'd disappear.

Ray sits with his back to the town and its lights and stares north. Fraser is seated next him, aimlessly working on a bit of the dog harness. The dogs are restless, excited by the smells and sounds of other life from the town. They yip and growl and answer the cries of dogs all over Inuvik. Ray tries to ignore the sounds. He carefully works one his gloves off. The cold immediately bites into his fingers. Fraser is still intent on the harness, not looking at Ray.

Ray reaches out with his bare hand toward Fraser beside him, carefully not looking his way. He turns his palm upward and holds it there.

He tries to tell himself that perhaps Fraser doesn't see his hand there. He can't stop his hand from shaking, can't keep it there forever. Then Fraser's hand, bared too and only marginally warmer than Ray's, locks around his.

Ray turns his head and looks at Fraser. Those eyes are as filled with pain as Ray is.

"The reaching out hand," Fraser whispers.

Ray squeezes his fingers round Fraser's roughened ones and nods, because his throat is too tight to let him speak.

He wants what he knows better than to want and Fraser is the same. They're desperate in the silence of shared knowledge, pretending for just a little while longer that they can have all of it. Tomorrow they'll settle for what must be instead.

They hold on as long as they can, but the cold is too much and finally, both men let go

Ray fumbles, trying to get his glove back on, eyes gone blurry and fingers numb. Fraser takes the glove and carefully smoothes it on. Ray watches, mute, as he does it, watches Fraser put his own glove back on. Insulated and separate again.

Because he's going the next day.

Because Fraser is staying and that's another kind of going. He's going away from Ray. And Ray's leaving him. Both of them going away. Away, away, away.

He looks at his hands. Clever hands, skilled hands, hands hardened by work, apt to pen or gun. So bare. Hands that have touched no one but himself since it ended.

Empty.

Empty handed.

Reaching out.

Holding on.

Letting go.

Let go.

Please, just let go.